The bumper rules killed all the 'fall over to become bigger' robots, limiting all robots to the max config of 38x28 up til 2013
The perimeter rule made robots even smaller still, but allowed for some more creativity. If you scale the the old max config into the the current perimeter, it ends up being something like 26x30"
Last year we needed some extra space to fit all the 'stuff'. Like this year, we needed a wide pickup, it was out thinking that if we could pick up 2 frisbees wide auto would be a piece of cake.
By chamfering the corners by 3.5"x4" we were able to save 8.75" of perimeter, directly translating into an extra 4" of length making our robot 32"x28". 3 of those inches made it possible for our pickup to deliver disks from our pickup to our hopper.
Only downside was bumpers were a pain to make, but isn't that always the case?
